title: The effects of race and maternal education level on children's retells of the Renfrew Bus Story--North American Edition.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The Renfrew Bus Story--North American Edition (RBS-NA; C. Glasgow & J. Cowley, 1994) is widely used in clinical and research settings to determine children's language abilities, although possible influences of race and maternal education on RBS-NA performance are unknown. The current study compared RBS-NA retells of 4 groups of children: African American (AA) children and European American (EA) children whose mothers had an education level of high school or less (≤ HS) and those whose mothers had an education level higher than high school (> HS).
  
  
  METHODS
  Statistical tests were used to examine 172 kindergartners' story retells using raw scores for all 4 RBS-NA measures: (a) Information, (b) Sentence Length, (c) Complexity, and (d) Independence.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A 2 × 2 analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed main effects of maternal education and race for the Information score, with ≤ HS and AA children scoring lower. For measures not meeting ANOVA assumptions, 2 × 2 ANOVAs using ranked data indicated significant main effects of maternal education for Sentence Length, Complexity, and Independence measure, with ≤ HS children scoring lower within the AA group.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There are systematic effects of maternal education and race on children's RBS-NA performance, which is important for both researchers and clinicians to take into account when using this instrument.
authors.affiliation: University of Texas at Dallas, USA. annevk@utdallas.edu
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: van Kleeck
authors.forename: Alissa
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lange
authors.forename: Amy Louise
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Schwarz
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D002648:Child; D002663:Child Language; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007804:Language Development; D007807:Language Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008297:Male; D009035:Mothers / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D033262:Narration; D012923:Social Class; D014481:United States; D044465:White People / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*